


Cold and Broken

by wrennette



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Angst, Canon Typical Racism, Canon Typical Swearing, Casual Sex, Denial, M/M, archiving old words, canon typical homophobia, not so casual sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-13
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-20 15:08:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4791902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrennette/pseuds/wrennette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Nate won't have Brad, Walt will, and until Nate comes back, that has to be good enough. But Nate always comes back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold and Broken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tradesland](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tradesland).



> Archiving from LJ. Originally posted 2009.
> 
> Disclaimer: Characters are the property of Evan Wright and HBO. The author in no way purports to portray factual events and makes no profit.
> 
> Original AN: For tradesland, because I promised. I may or may not have written the second half of this fic and decided on the title with hallelujah as sung by Jeff Buckley on infinite repeat.

"Poke said you were looking for me," Brad said, handing over a semi-warm bottle of beer. 

"Funny," Nate said with a lopsided little smile. "He told me _you_ were looking for _me_." Brad glanced back over his shoulder. Everyone else was around back of the house. He closed the distance between them, stopping just inside Nate's personal space. Nate smiled slightly, eyes skating away from Brad's face, lingering on his hands where they curved around his beer before falling to the ground. 

"Nate?" Brad asked gently, and Nate looked up, then away again quickly, an aborted sigh escaping him. "What is it?" Brad all but demanded, stepping closer, even more into Nate's space, and that finally got Nate to look up at him, meet his eyes. 

"Brad," Nate breathed out, and that was all Brad needed, because they had been dancing around this for too fucking long, and if it had gotten to the point where Poke Espera, king of saying what he fucking meant, was trying to hook them up without them noticing, they needed to sort things. Brad set the beer down firmly, just as firmly wrapped his hand around Nate's elbow, and then leaned in and kissed him, giving him no chance to pull away or escape. Nate held perfectly still, not responding at all. Brad pulled away slightly, just enough to read Nate's eyes. 

"Brad," Nate said, and his voice didn't waver at all, so Brad leaned in and kissed him quiet, taking a while longer, pressing his tongue against the seam of Nate's lips until they gave way. Nate still didn't really kiss back, just sort of let Brad take what he wanted, until Brad pulled away, eyes searching Nate's face. Nate took a deep shuddering breath, and Brad was a little relieved that at least Nate was a bit flushed, his respiration a bit ragged. 

"I - it's not that you're not a good looking guy," Nate said almost apologetically. "Or that I don't like you, or that, you know, even that you _are_ a guy," and Brad knew that he wasn't going to like what came next, so he just kissed Nate quiet again. "You can't just kiss me when you want me to shut up," Nate said shortly when he pushed Brad away, eyes narrowed in warning, and Brad just shrugged, a little smirk twisting one corner of his mouth. Nate sighed, scrubbing his hand through his hair. "I'm seeing someone," Nate tried to explain. "Back east." Like that meant something to Brad. 

Brad tried for all of three seconds to come up with a valid argument as to why that was complete and utter bullshit, then settled for demonstrating why by kissing Nate again, as wet and nasty as he possibly could, groping him for good measure. Nate pushed against his chest ineffectually, then tweaked his nipple, startling him into stepping away. Brad stared at the former officer in amazement, taking in the narrowed, angry eyes as well as the full, kiss bruised lips and pinked cheeks. Brad sighed and shrugged as if to say, 'well what did you expect?' and Nate rolled his eyes. 

"Stop," Nate said firmly. "I'm not looking Brad, and you can tell Poke too, and frankly, anyone else you want." Brad nodded, and watched Nate walk away. It was a nice view in civvies, the shift of Nate's muscles under his clothes. 

With a sigh Brad shotgunned the rest of his beer, then went back around to the barbecue. Poke shot him a questioning sort of glance, and Nate was studiously ignoring him by talking to the Gunny. Well. If it was going to be like that. He gave a short shake of his head at Poke, warning him not to even ask, and sort of fell into a conversation with Ray, against his best intentions. Somehow that led to it being several hours later and driving a somewhat incapacitated Walt home. After Walt tried to trip over his own feet getting out of Brad's truck, he killed the motor and went around to help the younger Marine. Somehow he ended up with his arms absolutely full of Walt, and Walt's mouth soft and warm against his. Incomprehensible murmurs spilled from Walt's lips, punctuated with sloppy, beer flavored kisses, and Brad hurried them into Walt's condo before any of the neighbors got too nosy. 

"I never did thank you," Walt slurred against Brad's chest. "For looking out for me over there". Brad deposited Walt in a chair, tried to ignore his half hard cock and the way Walt was looking up at him with those big blue eyes. 

"Fuck," Brad said, mostly to himself, then again, more loudly, as Walt blatantly palmed his cock through his jeans. That was an offer as sure as any Brad had ever seen, and he suddenly had the urge to be a lot drunker than he was. "You got anything to drink?" he asked tightly, and Walt waved in the general direction of the kitchen. Brad nodded, went to help himself, and when he came back Walt had fumbled his jeans open, was just sitting there stroking himself.

Brad felt his libido take interest, cursed his damn weakness for guys who looked up to him, for guys with big pale eyes and soft pale hair and pliant lips that begged to be kissed. He shot gunned his beer, then grabbed Walt by the biceps and pulled him to his feet. He kissed Walt deep and hard, and Walt kissed back eagerly, ground against him. He slipped his hand down the back of Walt's shorts, groped his ass liberally. Walt rode against him harder, whimpering into the kiss, clutching at his shirt, at his arms. It was gratifying in a way, and then Walt gave a soft, needy whimper, and came in his pants. Not quite what Brad had been anticipating, and a little flattering, but mostly disappointing.

"Sorry," Walt slurred, doing a bit of his own groping. "'S been a while". Brad snorted softly in amusement, then gently extracted himself and ushered Walt into the bedroom. He deposited Walt on the bed, then found the bathroom and wiped away the worst of the mess. A glance back at the bed showed him that Walt had simply flopped down and collapsed, and so with a sigh, Brad showed himself out. Hopefully things wouldn't get weird between him and Walt. The tension between him and Nate was bad enough without further mistakes compounding it. He drove himself home, resolutely not thinking about Walt, or Nate, or anything at all. Which meant of course that by the time he let himself into his apartment, his mind was steadily ping pong-ing back and forth between the feel of Nate's hot wet mouth under his and the hard press of Walt's body.

With a low growl of annoyance Brad wrenched on the shower, setting it as cold as he could bear and standing under it for a while. His half hard cock softened, and he shivered his way to bed. In the morning when he turned on his phone there were a half dozen illegible drunk texts from Walt, and with a sigh Brad grabbed the keys to his bike. Evidently, they were going to have to have a talk. He drove way too fast to Walt's, wanting to get this over with. But when he sat with the bike idling in the driveway of Walt's condo, all he could think of was Nate. He glanced at his phone. It was too early for this. He gunned the engine and spun the bike, went home, grabbed his surf gear and headed to the beach. 

A few hours later he was feeling mellow enough to tell Walt what a monumentally bad idea last night had been, that it had gone too far and he regretted taking advantage and hoped they could still be friends, plus a whole boatload of other horseshit. When he got back to Walt's place though, Walt greeted him with a searing kiss that only tasted like mint toothpaste and wanting, and it felt too good to just pass up. He kissed back hard, and then they were fumbling their way to Walt's bedroom, hurriedly stripping, grinding together, and then Brad had Walt on his hands and knees, and Walt was all but begging to be fucked. Brad groaned and cursed and stretched Walt open as fast as he could, so hard he could barely see straight, all the pent up need flooding along his nerve endings.

They fucked hard and fast and half desperate, and if Brad bit down on Walt's shoulder when he came to keep from calling someone else's name, that was unimportant. They collapsed together in the afterglow, sweaty and sated, neither caring to move. 

"So," Walt said after a while, voice slightly uncertain, and Brad hitched himself up onto one elbow, wondering how all of this would play out. "This isn't quite what I intended to happen," Walt said wryly. "Not gonna lie man, I'd been wondering about you, but I didn't - I didn't mean to jump you last night, and I'm sorry about that, and if you like, we can pretend this never happened either." Brad waited, hearing the unspoken 'or' that dangled in the air between them. "Or if you're up for it," Walt said after a while, looking up through his thick pale lashes. "I wouldn't mind if we did that a few more times, when the mood struck. I'm not talking anything much more complicated than fucking though." Brad shrugged, flopping back down. 

"I could live with that," he said. "The fucking, I mean." Walt let out a low chortle, then rolled over, pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of Brad's mouth, and padded off to the bathroom. A few moments later the shower switched on. Brad shrugged again and dozed while Walt cleaned up, then jumped in the shower himself. They ended up playing video games and drinking beer, and then Walt was on his knees sucking Brad off, and that was a pretty good end to the night, as things went. 

Whatever it was between them didn't get in the way of anything else in First Recon, and as far as either Brad or Walt could say, no one else even knew they were fucking. That was patently false of course. If there was any place worse then a room full of old ladies for gossip, it was the Marine Corps, so within a few days of Brad and Walt hooking up, the entire unit probably knew. But no one said anything, because for the most part, they didn't care one way or the other. In a different sort of environment, some of the guys might have spoken to Brad about how he was fucking up whatever chance he had with Fick by sticking his dick in Walt, and a couple others would have tried to kick his ass or give him the cold shoulder for sticking his dick in any man, but they were a unit, and that was that, so they kept their mouths closed on the matter as a whole. 

Except for Poke. But then, Poke was almost always the exception when it came to Brad. So one night when it was just the two of them and a case of beer on Poke's back porch, Poke brought up that Brad had to be eight kinds of an idiot if he was going to fuck Walt instead of Nate, just because Nate said he 'had someone back east'. Which was to an extent what Brad himself thought, which was why he didn't just get up and walk away from the conversation. 

"You oughta be moving to Massachusetts and buying his queer ass a ring you fucking Aryan homo," Poke said, and Brad just shrugged, because the idea of at least going out to Boston and knocking the snot out of Nate's significant other and some sense into Nate had crossed Brad's mind more than once. But Brad wasn't into rape, and Nate had very clearly, more than once, said no. Which meant no. So that was that.

Poke didn't quite see that logic, instead only seeing the potential to rag on Brad for having a crush on an officer, and a pretty, wet-behind-the-ears (except not really), Ivy League, choir boy, pansy ass (except not at all) officer at that. Brad mostly just ignored Poke and drank his beer, and when he had been silent long enough that Poke's insults were starting to repeat themselves, he reminded Poke that Poke didn't, in fact, know jack shit, since Poke was just an ignorant, illiterate, racially confused wet-back. Which made Poke smile, and when it was dark, Brad went home again, and knocked around his place for a while before deciding he actually didn't want to be alone, so he went to Walt's, and they fucked slow and filthy, and in the morning, or maybe the afternoon, Walt made pancakes.

When Nate swung back again a few months later (because he couldn't seem to stay away), Brad and Walt were still together, still fucking casually more nights than they slept alone. It wasn't like they had a relationship, Brad mused one night as he watched Walt sleep, if they were in a relationship he'd have to buy Walt flowers or dinner or some queer shit like that before they got around to the good parts. Instead, they just showed up at one another's places and fell into bed together. It was a pretty good deal, even if Brad sometimes did a double take when Walt looked up at him, because he was wanting to see eyes a shade paler, a shade more toward green. Walt never mentioned that though. They never really talked about their not-relationship at all, and that was just fine too.

Brad woke up later than usual, and the cool hollow next to him said that Walt was already awake, while the scent of coffee said he was in the kitchen. A sharp rap sounded at the screen door, and Brad pulled on shorts and ambled into the kitchen in time to see the shock on Nate's face as Walt opened the door, shirtless and with hickey's standing out round and red against his golden white skin. 

"Sir," Brad said, grasping for control, for an idea of what Nate might be doing at his house at this time of the morning. 

"Brad," Nate said soft and weak, face looking paler than usual, vaguely unhealthy, and Walt slipped past Nate, back into the bedroom, silent as a cat. Brad looked back and forth helplessly between Nate and the empty doorway, and finally Nate made a dismissive sort of little gesture, and Brad was in the bedroom in three steps, grabbing Walt's arm as he tried to gather together the things of his that had migrated to Brad's. 

"Walt," Brad said, low and rough and and half heartbroken, but Walt jerked his arm free without a word, didn't even look up, just grabbed a few more things and then slipped away again, the screen door slamming closed behind him. Brad felt rather like he was doing the walk of shame when he went back out to the front of the house, and he found Nate perched on the front steps, looking off towards the horizon with a thousand yard stare. "Sir," he said, and Nate snorted softly. 

"Cut the crap," Nate said shortly, low and firm, and Brad snapped his mouth closed, swallowed the formless words that choked his throat. "Was it ever me?" Nate asked, and Brad looked around so fast his neck hurt. 

"Excuse me?" he asked, despite that he knew exactly what Nate had said. 

"Or do you just have a thing for blue eyed blondes you know won't say no, or at least not for long?" Brad opened his mouth, but his words were still choked in his throat, and he couldn't get them out, couldn't get them to line up right. Nate stood with a sigh, hands scrubbing through his dirty blonde hair. Silently, Nate began to walk away. Brad felt like he was being stabbed, and he gasped hard, the air sharp at the back of his mouth. 

"It was always you," Brad forced out finally, and his voice sounded so damn small, so fucking _vulnerable_ , but Nate turned, stared at him, a long even stare, measuring. Brad returned the stare as evenly as possible, not sure what else to say or do, aching for Walt, aching for Nate, aching to know which way was up so he could fight to the surface and draw air into his suffocating lungs.

The corner of Nate's mouth pulled into the beginning of a sneer, and Brad died a little inside, even as he forced his body into motion. It was like fighting through quicksand, struggling against the thick, clinging particles. He grabbed Nate by the wrist, pulled him roughly close and kissed him hard, not caring that they were standing on his front lawn for the whole world to see. 

"It's only ever been you," he breathed out roughly when Nate pulled away, and then Nate was all over him, kissing him like it was the end of the war, the end of the world, and they were going out in style. He dragged Nate inside, kissed him against the kitchen table and the breakfast nook and the door frame to his room before they tumbled into the bed. "Only you," he said, and Nate kissed him quiet, and this time it was slow and sweet, and the beginning of a whole new world.


End file.
